The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [129]
Austra had been the hardest to find.
She imagined her friend’s face, her laugh, and the chagrined pucker of her forehead when she was afraid Anne was about to get them both into trouble.
And there was something, a reflection, a flicker in the distance of leagues and also time. But as Anne moved toward it to peek up from the sedos like a groundhog from the earth, a current of sickening power caught and twisted her misty form, a massive flow against which she could not struggle. It slammed her into something, submerged her in pain and horror, and congealed her back into human form.
Someone was cutting her. She smelled the blood, felt the pain. His stinking breath was in her ear, and she saw her legs all exposed and smeared red. She felt the fear, sheer panic, the certain horrible knowledge that she was going to die, the animal need to tear away and run and the impossibility of doing so. She couldn’t even think. She couldn’t scream. She could only watch as the knife peeled her white skin.
Fight! she tried to scream. Stop him!
When the echo came back, she suddenly understood that this wasn’t happening to her. The body being tortured was Austra’s.
Fight, Austra, for the love of the saints! I can’t lose you!
Something turned then, and Anne was yanked back out into the currents. For the first time she saw Austra’s face, her empty, horrified gaze, and then she was dwindling away, gone.
Anne went frantically back, racing up and down, back and forth, but there was no longer any trace of her friend, and now she couldn’t locate Cazio again. But she didn’t give up; she had to find them. She had the power to find them, to bring them back from the dead if need be, and by all the saints, she would do so.
She woke shivering and shaking, wondering who she was, where she was, the sense of losing herself as bad as ever. She was weeping helplessly, and although she eventually understood that it was Emily who had awakened her, she wasn’t able to respond. Only after Nerenai brought some of her tea was she able to muster the coherence to listen.
“Again, Emily,” she murmured.
“Majesty,” Emily said. “The army of Hansa.”
She opened her eyes and saw the girl kneeling next to her.
“What about them?”
“You’ve been…gone for two days. We could not rouse you.”
“What’s happened?”
“Fifteen thousand more of the enemy arrived two nights ago. They attacked yesterday morning. They’ve just breached the canal and are surrounding the keep.”
The keep surrounded. Austra and Cazio dead. The Church, the fleet from the north…
Too much. Too much.
“Where’s Artwair?”
“Outside.”
“Get my dressing gown.”
She heard a lot of clattering in the hall. When she emerged to meet Artwair, she saw that it was filled with her Craftsmen and Sefry.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
“Just a precaution, Majesty,” he said. “There is a chance the keep will fall. We’ll want to get you out of it.”
She nodded. Let Artwair take over. Get Faster, ride away, and never look back. Find Cazio; he may still live…
She felt everything in her buckling. She didn’t want this. She thought of Austra, of the horror of her torture, of how someone could do that to her friend, and was sickened. Was Austra dead? Probably. And now death was coming for her.
But where would she ride? Where would she be safe?
“No,” she said. “Wait.”
“There isn’t much time, Majesty. They’re already in the city.”
“I said wait.”
“Majesty,” he replied stiffly.
She fought down the claustrophobia seeking to swallow her. “Take me where I can see what’s going on and explain it as we go.”
“Majesty—”
But he saw her glance and cut himself off.
So they made their way to the now-familiar tower.
The sun was just a hemisphere in the east, and mist lay heavy on the earth. The air had the cool scent of autumn that brought feelings of nostalgia even when one was ten years old.
The keep was indeed surrounded except for the area around the southern gates, where a wall of pikes kept the Hansans back. It looked like an island in a stormy sea.
“That’s where I’m supposed to make my great escape?” she asked.
“It’s your